The New Creative Europe Platforms: A Short Profile

On 5 August, the results of the first-ever call for European Platform Projects under the EU’s Creative Europe funding programme where announced. Platforms have the objective to

foster the development of emerging talents & increase their visibility

Source: EACEA Call Page

stimulate the transnational mobility of cultural and creative players

support the circulation of works,

create a broad & lasting influence on the cultural and creative sectors

Five of 24 submitted proposals were selected – amounting to a success rate of just over 20%. All of these have already more than 10 members and are established in at least 10 European countries. While some of these ‘platforms’ already have a long history and tradition, others are new initiatives of cooperating organisations. Here’s a first glance at the successful proposals that will each receive a grant of up to half a million Euros.

Liveurope

The Liveurope Platform is an initiative that brings together 13 popular concert halls established in several countries in Europe. In presenting those halls that are active in the promotion of new European talents are identified, obtaining good results arising from their programming. The Liveurope Platform aims to build a broader and more diverse audience for European music and unleash their full artistic potential.

Founding members are:

Ancienne Belgique – Belgium

Blå – Norway

Nouveau Casino – France

Rockhal – Luxembourg

Aerowaves

Aerowaves is a European dance network for emerging choreographers and companies who have not yet done much touring abroad. It brings together specialists from 35 countries to look at the work of young choreographers. This results in many performance opportunities both at The Place in London, but has also been leading to a steadily increasing number of presentations throughout the continent.

E-merging Creativity

E-merging Creativity is a pan-European poetry project of literary festivals, aiming to bring poetry closer to the audience and collaborating to create a pan-European added value and sustainable vision of the initial idea. Through pan-European promotional activities, EMC aims to establish a European quality label EMC (EMC QL) for festivals that strive to regularly present new, quality works by the emerging authors to a wider audience, and for the works and the artists themselves who will establish themselves in the wider European area because of this expert acknowledgement of excellence.

IN SITU

Since 2003, the IN SITU European network has promoted artistic creation in the public space. Over the years, its activity has been founded on three projects supported, until 2009, by the European Commission within the framework of the Culture 2000 programme and then by the DGEAC for the “Rendez-vous” project promoting the transnational mobility of artists and – until now – the META project. The network brings together centres and festivals from over 10 countries to foster travel, exchange and co-productions.

Sound, Heterogenous Art & Performance in Europe

The new network is headed by MeetFactory, a non-for-profit International Centre for Contemporary Art located in Prague. Its mission is to create a European network of information and production centres that support artists, help develop contemporary art and present it in a comprehensive and accessible way to a wide range of audiences. From the information publicly available at this point, it seems like activities would include sound & recording support, artist in residence programmes, travelling exhibitions & productions, an information database & own publications. Exhibition- and art centres in France, the Netherlands and Slovakia seem to be amongst the founding members.